It is way too hard for Googlers to create events

Users pains:

• Event hosts use many platforms to create an event and are unsure which platform suits their needs
• Event creation is tedious and has too many steps
• Event service coordinators and event managers do a lot of back and forth and manual processes to support a single event and use other tools for communication and planning purposes

Business needs & goals:

• Need to know if there is a need for more rooms and buildings to fit the demand for in-person meetings
• Need to understand if more resources are needed to support events
• Stakeholders expressed dissatisfaction with the current product, citing a lack of desired features and poor integration with other tools
• The original objective was to improve hybrid and online events, which have become more prevalent during the pandemic

Scheduling

Global holidays

Request routing

Pending requests

Role

• Research, Brainstorming & Design: Co-led research to understand user needs, led brainstorming for innovation, and designed user-centric solutions for enhanced usability.
• Validation, Alignment & Communication: Ensured product quality through validation exercises, aligned team efforts for efficiency, and managed communication with key stakeholders.

Team

• Google: 4 Project Managers, 2 Engineers, Analytics team
• Epam: 2 Designers, 2 Business Analysts, 10+ Engineers

Saving Google time and money during COVID

Insights The current product is a patchwork that threatens business goals. Workflow frustration leads to extended support time, and desired changes risk compromising long-term solutions and higher resources cost.

Solution A unified event management system integrates all event types into a single interface. This allows users to manage events of any size, location, and type and provides key metrics for informed resource planning and real estate decisions.

<aside> 🟢 After redesign

1. Simplified global and local navigation
2. Private messaging introduced
3. Better support team management and coordination within GEMS
4. The event progress panel introduced </aside>

<aside> 🟢 After redesign

1. Concept of sessions introduced
2. Fewer questions and back-and-forth processes to create an event
3. Simplified stepper with a review page
4. Clean look and feel </aside>

Event page

Event creation

Impact to Google

• Drastically decreased time to create complex events by 50%
• Decreased resources cost